Published: March 06, 2008 07:25 pm         

Commissioners race goes to runoff, Hall sweeps county

By Leslie Gibson

Herald-Banner Staff



Candidates for Rockwall County Commissioner Precinct 3, Dennis Bailey and Randy Puckett, are in a run-off election as of 10 p.m. Tuesday night; neither having 50 percent plus one vote.

Sheriff Harold Eavenson will again lead county law enforcement, and incumbent Jerry Wimpee maintains his seat as Precinct 1 commissioner.

Since no Democrats filed in local races, Republican primary winners will become the officeholders after the November general election.

Republican turn-out was almost 19 percent of the total number of active registered voters in Rockwall County.

In Precinct 3, Bailey had 46.44 percent of the vote, with 809 votes, and Puckett 31.17 percent, with 543 votes. Leon Tuttle had 22.39 percent, with 390 votes.

Bailey said Wednesday that, “I consider last night a win, even though I didn’t get the 50 percent,” he said, and added, “I’m proud of the support and certainly proud of all my volunteers for all of their hard work. I am confident we can get out our support on April 8 and we’ll work hard to win the election on the 8th.” He concluded, “I look forward to serving as county commissioner.

Puckett, by phone Tuesday night, said, “We’ll do it again for another 30 days. I’m just going to keep doing the same old thing and let the voters decide. We have different background: His is in administration and I’m from the working class. They can decide if they want another administrator or someone from the police force and working class. There’s good things to both of them; let the voters decide.”

For Commissioner Precinct 1, Wimpee received 1,356 votes amounting to 65.70 percent. Bruce Clark garnered 34.30 percent, with 708 votes.

Sheriff incumbent Eavenson got 77.10 percent of the Republican vote to beat Teresa Tuggle, who got 22.90 percent. Eavenson’s votes totaled 4,997. Tuggle’s total was 1,484.

Rockwall County’s Republican Party will be led again by Bill Broderick, who had 64.97 percent to Mary Lou Hawkins Curtis 35.03 percent. Her former position of Precinct 2B Chairman was won by John Harper. He had 125 votes, or 67.57 percent, and Ralph Mount had 60 votes, 32.43 percent.

In a field of five, Ralph Hall, for U.S. Rep. District 4, took 86 percent of the votes in Rockwall County. The county gave him 6,348 votes, or 85.98 percent.

A little more than 5 percent of the votes went to Gene Christensen, and a little less than 5 percent went to Kathy Seei. Kevin George had 3 percent, leaving Joshua Kowert with .81 percent. Their vote totals in the county were: Christensen, 393; Seei, 355; George, 227; and Kowert, 60.

John McCain, the nation’s Republican candidate for president, received 47.75 percent of the vote, which was 3,677 votes.

Mike Huckabee withdrew his bid for Republican nominee by 10 p.m. Tuesday, but 44.62 percent of Rockwall County Republicans had already given him 3,436 votes.

Ron Paul received 2.84 percent; Mitt Romney, no longer running, received 1.82 percent; and Duncan Hunter, Hugh Cort, Rudy Giuliani, Alan Keyes, Hoa Tran and Fred Thompson, all no longer running, received less then 1 percent each.

For U.S. Senator, Rockwall Republicans selected John Cornyn with just under 85 percent. Larry Kilgore had just over 15 percent.

Rockwall County has 40,898 active registered voters, of whom 7,741 voted in the Republican primary, which was 18.93 percent. In 2004, the Republican primary had 4,860 vote, which was 13.7 percent of the registered county voters then.